The objectives of the proposed research are to identify reliable indicators of overall dental practice quality, to investigate relationships among dent l practice attributes and various outcomes of dental care (including patient satisfaction) and to examine relationships among prices and quality of dent l services. Data collected from 300 geographically distributed private genera practices during field testing of a detailed office assessment instrument will be used to (i) determine which elements of the structure, process and outcome dimensions of dental practice are reliable predictors of overall quality of care; (ii) examine relationships among specific components/elements of the structure and process dimensions of dental practice and selected outcomes of dental care and (iii) compare patients' evaluations of practice quality with professional assessments. Additional data (to be obtained from a survey of those same 300 offices) concerning prices charged for selected dental services, patient visits and major overhead costs at the time of the office evaluations will be combined with the office assessment data to (i) estimate the implicit values that consume s place on various practice attributes through the use of hedonic price regressions and (ii) estimate the contribution of service differentiation (differences in practice qualities) to variation in prices charged for dent l services. The significance of this line of research lies in its contributio to the development of reliable methods for comparing the quality and efficiency of dental care provided under various financing and delivery systems, and in its potential to reveal key attributes of care valued by th public. The results are expected to be of interest to consumers, purchasers and organizations concerned with the levels of quality provided in private dental practices and to those interested in the costs and level of competition in the market for dental services.